Charles Bukowski Factotum

22

After arriving in Philadelphia I found a roominghouse and
paid a week’s rent in advance. The nearest bar was fifty years
old. You could smell the odor of urine, shit and vomit of a half
century as it came up through the floor into the bar from the
restrooms below.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Two men were fighting in the
center of the bar.

The guy to the right of me said his name was Danny. To the
left, he said his name was Jim.

Danny had a cigarette in his mouth, end glowing. An empty
beerbottle looped through the air. It missed his cigarette and
nose, fractionally. He didn’t move or look around, tapped the
ashes of his cigarette into a tray. “That was pretty close, you
son of a bitch! Come that close again, you got a fight on your
hands!”

Every seat was taken. There were women in there, a few
housewives, fat and a bit stupid, and two or three ladies who
had fallen on hard times. As I sat there one girl got up and left
with a man. She was back in five minutes.

“Helen! Helen! How do you do it?”
She laughed.
Another jumped up to try her. “That must be good. I gotta
have some!”
They left together. Helen was back in five minutes.

37

38 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“She must have a suction pump for a pussy!”
“I gotta try me some of that,” said an old guy down at the
end of the bar. “I haven’t had a hard-on since Teddy Roosevelt
took his last hill.”
It took Helen ten minutes with that one.

“I want a sandwich,” said a fat guy. “Who’s gonna run me
an errand for a sandwich?”

I told him I would. “Roast beef on a bun, everything on.”
He gave me some money. “Keep the change.”
I walked down to the sandwich place. An old geezer with
a big belly walked up. “Roast beef on a bun to go, everything
on. And a bottle of beer while I’m waiting.”
I drank the beer, took the sandwich back to the fat guy in
the bar, and found another seat. A shot of whiskey appeared.
I drank it down. Another appeared. I drank it down. The juke
box played.
A young fellow of about twenty-four came down from the
end of the bar. “I need the venetian blinds cleaned,” he said
to me.
“You sure do.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing. Drink. Both.”
“How about the blinds?”
“Five bucks.”
“You’re hired.”
They called him Billy-Boy. Billy-Boy had married the owner
of the bar. She was forty-five.
He brought me two buckets, some suds, rags and

FACTOTUM / 39

sponges. I took the blinds down, removed the slats, and began.
“Drinks are free,” said Tommy the night bartender, “as long

as you’re working.”
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”

It was slow work; the dust had caked, turned into embedded
grime. I cut my hands several times on the edges of the metal
slats. The soapy water burned.

“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”
I finished one set of blinds and hung them up. The patrons
of the bar turned to look at my work.
“Beautiful!”
“It sure helps the place.”
“They’ll probably raise the price of drinks.”
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy,” I said.
I took down another set of blinds, pulled out the slats. I beat
Jim at the pinball machine for a quarter, then emptied the
buckets in the crapper and got fresh water.
The second set went slower. My hands collected more cuts.
I doubt that those blinds had been cleaned in ten years. I won
another quarter at the pinball then Billy-Boy hollered at me to
go back to work.
Helen walked by on her way to the women’s crapper.
“Helen, I’ll give you five bucks when I’m finished. Will that
cover?”
“Sure, but you won’t be able to get it up after all that work.”
“I’ll get it up.”
“I’ll be here at closing. If you can still stand up, then

40 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

you can have it for nothing!”
“I’ll be standing tall, baby.”
Helen walked back to the crapper.
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”
“Hey, take it easy,” said Billy-Boy, “or you’ll never finish

that job tonight.”
“Billy, if I don’t finish you keep your five.”
“It’s a deal. All you people hear that?”
“We heard you, Billy, you cheap ass.”
“One for the road, Tommy.”
Tommy gave me the whiskey. I drank it and went to work.

I drove myself on. After a number of whiskeys I had the three
sets of blinds up and shining.

“All right, Billy, pay up.”
“You’re not finished.”
“What?”
“There’s three more windows in the back room.”
“The back room?”
“The back room. The party room.”
Billy-Boy showed me the back room. There were three more
windows, three more sets of blinds.
“I’ll settle for two-fifty, Billy.”
“No, you got to do them all or no pay.”
I got my buckets, dumped the water, put in clean water,
soap, then took down a set of blinds. I pulled the slats out, put
them on a table and stared at them.
Jim stopped on his way to the crapper. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t go another slat.”
When Jim came out of the crapper he went to the bar

FACTOTUM / 41

and brought back his beer. He began cleaning the blinds.
“Jim, forget it.”
I went to the bar, got another whiskey. When I got back one

of the girls was taking down a set of blinds. “Be careful, don’t
cut yourself,” I told her.

A few minutes later there were four or five people back there
talking and laughing, even Helen. They were all working on
the blinds. Soon nearly everybody in the bar was back there.
I worked in two more whiskeys. Finally the blinds were fin-
ished and hanging. It hadn’t taken very long. They sparkled.
Billy-Boy came in:

“I don’t have to pay you.”
“The job’s finished.”
“But you didn’t finish it.”
“Don’t be a cheap shit, Billy,” somebody said.
Billy-Boy dug out the $5 and I took it. We moved to the bar.
“A drink for everybody!” I laid the $5 down. “And one for me
too.”
Tommy went around pouring drinks.
I drank my drink and Tommy picked up the $5.
“You owe the bar $3.15.”
“Put it on the tab.”
“O.K., what’s your last name?”
“Chinaski.”
“You heard the one about the Polack who went to the out-
house?”
“Yes.”
Drinks came my way until closing time. After the last one I
looked around. Helen had slipped out. Helen had lied.
Just like a bitch, I thought, afraid of the long hard

42 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

ride…
I got up and walked back to my roominghouse. The moon-

light was bright. My footsteps echoed in the empty street and
it sounded as if somebody was following me. I looked around.
I was mistaken. I was quite alone.

23

When I arrived in St. Louis it was very cold, about to snow,
and I found a room in a nice clean place, a room on the second
floor, in the back. It was early evening and I was having one
of my depressive fits so I went to bed early and somehow
managed to sleep.

When I awakened in the morning it was very cold. I was
shivering uncontrollably. I got up and found that one of the
windows was open. I closed the window and went back to
bed. I began to feel nauseated. I managed to sleep another
hour, then awakened. I got up, dressed, barely made it to the
hall bathroom and vomited. I undressed and got back into bed.
Soon there was a knock on the door. I didn’t answer. The
knocking continued. “Yes?” I asked.

“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Can we come in?”
“Come in.”
There were two girls. One was a bit on the fat side but
scrubbed, shining, in a flowery pink dress. She had a kind face.
The other wore a wide tight belt that accentuated her

FACTOTUM / 43

very good figure. Her hair was long, dark, and she had a cute
nose; she wore high heels, had perfect legs, and wore a white
low cut blouse. Her eyes were dark brown, very dark, and they
kept looking at me, amused, very amused. “I’m Gertrude,”
she said, “and this is Hilda.”

Hilda managed to blush as Gertrude moved across the room
toward my bed. “We heard you in the bathroom. Are you
sick?”

“Yes. But it’s nothing serious, I’m sure. An open window.”
“Mrs. Downing, the landlady, is making you some soup.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“It’ll do you good.”
Gertrude moved nearer my bed. Hilda remained where she
was, pink and scrubbed and blushing. Gertrude pivoted back
and forth on her very high heels. “Are you new in town?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not in the army?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.”
“No work?”
“No work.”
“Yes,” said Gertrude to Hilda, “look at his hands. He has
the most beautiful hands. You can see that he has never
worked.”
The landlady, Mrs. Downing, knocked. She was large and
pleasant. I imagined that her husband was dead and

44 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

that she was religious. She carried a large bowl of beef broth,
holding it high in the air. I could see the steam rising. I took
the bowl. We exchanged pleasantries. Yes, her husband was
dead. She was very religious. There were crackers, plus salt
and pepper.

“Thank you.”
Mrs. Downing looked at both of the girls. “We’ll all be going
now. We hope you get well soon. And I hope the girls haven’t
bothered you too much?”
“Oh no!” I grinned into the broth. She liked that.
“Come on, girls.”
Mrs. Downing left the door open. Hilda managed one last
blush, gave me the tiniest smile, then left. Gertrude remained.
She watched me spoon the broth in. “Is it good?”
“I want to thank all you people. All this…is very unusual.”
“I’m going.” She turned and walked very slowly toward the
door. Her buttocks moved under her tight black skirt; her legs
were golden. At the doorway she stopped and turned, rested
her dark eyes on me once again, held me. I was transfixed,
glowing. The moment she felt my response she tossed her head
and laughed. She had a lovely neck, and all that dark hair. She
walked off down the hall, leaving the door ajar.
I took the salt and pepper, seasoned the broth, broke the
crackers into it, and spooned it into my illness.

FACTOTUM / 45

24

I found a job as a shipping clerk in a ladies’ dresswear shop.
Even during World War II when there was supposed to be a
manpower shortage there were four or five applicants for each
job. (At least for the menial jobs.) We waited with our applica-
tion forms filled out. Born? Single? Married? Draft status? Last
job? Last jobs? Why did you leave? I had filled out so many
job forms that long ago I had memorized the right answers.
Having gotten out of bed quite late that morning I was the last
to be called. A bald man with strange tufts of hair over each
ear interviewed me.

“Yes?” he asked, looking at me over the sheet.
“I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.”
“Oh, a writer, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What do you write?”
“Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel.”
“A novel, eh?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“‘The Leaky Faucet of My Doom.’”
“Oh, I like that. What’s it about?”

46 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“Everything.”
“Everything? You mean, for instance, it’s about cancer?”
“Yes.”
“How about my wife?”
“She’s in there too.”
You don’t say. Why do you want to work in a ladies’ dress
shop?”
“I’ve always liked ladies in ladies’ dresses.”
“Are you 4-F?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see your draft card.”
I showed him my draft card. He handed it back.
“You’re hired.”

25

We were down in a cellar. The walls were painted yellow.
We packed our ladies’ dresses into oblong cardboard boxes
about three feet long and a foot or a foot and a half wide. A
certain skill was needed in folding each dress so that it did not
become creased in the carton. To prevent this we used card-
board fillers and tissue, and were given careful instructions.
The U.S. Mail was used for out of town deliveries. We each
had our own scale and our own postage meter machine. No
smoking.

Larabee was the head shipping clerk. Klein was the assistant
head shipping clerk. Larabee was the boss. Klein

FACTOTUM / 47

was trying to move Larabee out of his job. Klein was Jewish
and the owners of the store were Jewish and Larabee was
nervous. Klein and Larabee argued and fought all day long
and on into the evenings. Yes, evenings. The problem, as it
was in those days during the war, was overtime. Those in
control always preferred to overwork a few men continually,
instead of hiring more people so everyone might work less.
You gave the boss eight hours, and he always asked for more.
He never sent you home after six hours, for example. You
might have time to think.

26

Whenever I went out into the hall of the roominghouse
Gertrude seemed to be standing there. She was perfect, pure
maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped
it, and allowed you to suffer for it. It made her happy. I didn’t
feel too bad either. She could easily have shut me out and not
even have allowed me to be warmed by a glimpse of it. Like
most men in that situation I realized that I wouldn’t get any-
thing out of her—intimate talks, exciting roller-coaster rides,
long Sunday afternoon walks—until after I had made some
odd promises.

“You’re a strange guy. You stay alone a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was sick long before that morning you met me.”
“Are you sick now?”

48 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t like people.”
“Do you think that’s right?”
“Probably not.”
“Will you take me to a movie some night?”
“I’ll try.”
Gertrude swayed in front of me; she swayed on her high
heels. She moved forward. Bits of her were touching me. I
simply couldn’t respond. There was a space between us. The
distance was too great. I felt as if she was talking to a person
who had vanished, a person who was no longer there, no
longer alive. Her eyes seemed to look right through me. I
couldn’t make a connection with her. I didn’t feel shame for
that, only rather embarrassed, and helpless.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“I want to show you my bedroom.”
I followed Gertrude down the hall. She opened her bedroom
door and I followed her in. It was a very feminine room. The
large bed was covered with stuffed animals. All of the animals
looked surprised and stared at me: giraffes, bears, lions, dogs.
The air was perfumed. Everything was neat and clean and
looked soft and comfortable. Gertrude moved close to me.
“You like my bedroom?”
“It’s nice. Oh yes, I like it.”
“Don’t ever tell Mrs. Downing that I asked you in here, she’d
be scandalized.”
“I won’t tell.”

FACTOTUM / 49

Gertrude stood there, silently.
“I have to go,” I told her finally. Then I went to the door,
opened it, closed it behind me, and walked back to my room.

27

After losing several typewriters to pawnbrokers I simply
gave up the idea of owning one. I printed out my stories by
hand and sent them out that way. I hand-printed them with a
pen. I got to be a very fast hand-printer. It got so that I could
hand-print faster than I could write. I wrote three or four short
stories a week. I kept things in the mail. I imagined the editors
of The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s saying: “Hey, here’s an-
other one of those things by that nut…”

One night I took Gertrude to a bar. We sat at a table to one
side and drank beer. It was snowing outside. I felt a little better
than usual. We drank and talked. An hour or so passed. I began
gazing into Gertrude’s eyes and she looked right back. “A good
man, nowadays, is hard to find!” said the juke box. Gertrude
moved her body to the music, moved her head to the music,
and looked into my eyes.

“You have a very strange face,” she said. “You’re not really
ugly.”

“Number four shipping clerk, working his way up.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Love is for real people.”

50 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“You sound real.”
“I dislike real people.”
“You dislike them?”
“I hate them.”
We drank some more, not saying much. It continued to snow.
Gertrude turned her head and stared into the crowd of people.
Then she looked at me.
“Isn’t he handsome?”
“Who?”
“That soldier over there. He’s sitting alone. He sits so straight.
And he’s got all his medals on.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“But it’s not late.”
“You can stay.”
“No, I want to go with you.”
“I don’t care what you do.”
“Is it the soldier? Are you mad because of the soldier?”
“Oh, shit!”
“It was the soldier!”
“I’m going.”
I stood up at the table, left a tip and walked toward the door.
I heard Gertrude behind me. I walked down the street in the
snow. Soon she was walking at my side.
“You didn’t even get a taxi. These high heels in the snow!”
I didn’t answer. We walked the four or five blocks to the
rooming house. I went up the steps with her beside me. Then
I walked down to my room, opened the door, closed it, got out
of my clothes and went to bed. I heard her throw something
against the wall of her room.

FACTOTUM / 51

28

I kept hand-printing my short stories. I sent most of them
to Clay Gladmore, whose New York mag Frontfire I admired.
They only paid $25 a story but Gladmore had discovered
William Saroyan and many others, had been Sherwood Ander-
son’s buddy. Gladmore returned many of my things with
personal rejections. True, most of them weren’t very long but
they did seem kind and they were encouraging. The larger
magazines used printed rejection slips. Even Gladmore’s
printed slips seemed to have some warmth to them: “We regret,
alas, that this is a rejection slip but…”

So I kept Gladmore busy with four or five stories a week.
Meanwhile I was in ladies’s dresswear, down in the cellar.
Klein still hadn’t ousted Larabee; Cox, the other shipping clerk,
didn’t care who was ousted as long as he could sneak his smoke
on the stairway every twenty-five minutes.

Overtime became automatic. I drank more and more in my
off hours. The eight hour day was gone forever. In the morning
when you walked in you might as well settle for at least eleven
hours. This included Saturdays, which used to be half-days,
but which had turned into full days. The war was on but the
ladies were buying the hell out of dresses…

52 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

It was after one twelve hour day. I had gotten into my coat,
had come up out of the cellar, had lighted a cigarette and was
walking along the hallway toward the exit when I heard the
boss’s voice: “Chinaski!”

“Yes?”
“Step in here.”
My boss was smoking a long expensive cigar. He looked
well-rested.
“This is my friend, Carson Gentry.”
Carson Gentry was also smoking a long expensive cigar.
“Mr. Gentry is a writer too. He is very interested in writing.
I told him that you were a writer and he wanted to meet you.
You don’t mind, do you?”
“No I don’t mind.”
They both sat there looking at me and smoking their cigars.
Several minutes passed. They inhaled, exhaled, looked at me.
“Do you mind if I leave?” I asked.
“It’s all right,” said my boss.

29

I always walked to my room, it was six or seven blocks away.
The trees along the streets were all alike: small, twisted, half-
frozen, leafless. I liked them. I walked along under the cold
moon.

That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the
fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long rides up

FACTOTUM / 53

winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to
Europe. Fine women. Were they that much more clever than
I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate
it.

I’d do it too! I’d save my pennies. I’d get an idea, I’d spring
a loan. I’d hire and fire. I’d keep whiskey in my desk drawer.
I’d have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make
the paperboy on the corner come in his pants when he saw it
wobble. I’d cheat on her and she’d know it and keep silent in
order to live in my house with my wealth. I’d fire men just to
see the look of dismay on their faces. I’d fire women who didn’t
deserve to be fired.

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that
discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, liv-
ing on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in
order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately,
didn’t improve art. It only hindered it. A man’s soul was rooted
in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a
porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could
ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the
starving artist was a hoax. Once you realized that everything
was a hoax you got wise and began to bleed and burn your
fellow man. I’d build an empire upon the broken bodies and
lives of helpless men, women, and children—I’d shove it to
them all the way. I’d show them!

I was at my rooming house. I walked up the stairway to the
door of my room. I unlocked the door, turned on the light.
Mrs. Downing had put the mail by my door. There was a large
brown envelope from Gladmore. I picked

54 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

it up. It was heavy with rejected manuscripts. I sat down and
opened the envelope.

Dear Mr. Chinaski:

We are returning these four stories but we are keeping
My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees
Of The World. We have been watching your work for a long
time and we are most happy to accept this story.

Sincerely,

Clay Gladmore.

I got up from the chair still holding my acceptance slip. MY
FIRST. From the number one literary magazine in America.
Never had the world looked so good, so full of promise. I
walked over to the bed, sat down, read it again. I studied each
curve in the handwriting of Gladmore’s signature. I got up,
walked the acceptance slip over to the dresser, propped it there.
Then I undressed, turned out the lights and went to bed. I
couldn’t sleep. I got up, turned on the light, walked over to
the dresser and read it again:

Dear Mr. Chinaski…

30

I often saw Gertrude in the hall. We talked but I didn’t ask
her out again. She stood very close to me, gently swaying, now
and then staggering, as if drunk, upon her very high heels.
One Sunday morning I found myself on the front lawn with
Gertrude and Hilda. The girls made snowballs, laughed and
screamed, threw them at me. Never having lived in snow
country I was slow at first but I soon found out how to make
a snowball and hurl it. Gertrude fired up, screamed. She was
delicious. She was all flare and lightning. For a moment I felt
like walking across the lawn and grabbing her. Then I gave
up, walked away down the street with the snowballs whizzing
past me.

Tens of thousands of young men were fighting in Europe
and China, in the Pacific Islands. When they came back she’d
find one. She wouldn’t have any problem. Not with that body.
Not with those eyes. Even Hilda wouldn’t have any difficulty.

I began to feel that it was time for me to leave St. Louis. I
decided to go back to Los Angeles; meanwhile I kept handprint-
ing short stories by the score, got drunk, listened to Beethoven’s
Fifth, Brahm’s Second…

One particular night after work I stopped at a local bar.

55

56 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I sat and drank five or six beers, got up and walked the block
or so to my roominghouse. Gertrude’s door was open as I
walked past. “Henry…”

“Hello.” I walked up to the door, looked at her. “Gertrude,
I’m leaving town. I gave notice at work today.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“You people have been nice to me.”
“Listen, before you leave I want you to meet my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Yes, he just moved in, right down the hall.”
I followed her. She knocked and I stood behind her. The
door opened: grey and white striped pants; long-sleeved
checked shirt; necktie. A thin moustache. Vacant eyes. Out of
one of his nostrils streamed a nearly invisible thread of snot
that had finally gathered into a little gleaming ball. The ball
had settled in the moustache and was gathering to drip off,
but meanwhile it sat there and reflected the light.
“Joey,” she said, “I want you to meet Henry.”
We shook hands. Gertrude went in. The door closed. I
walked back to my room and began packing. Packing was al-
ways a good time.

31

When I got back to Los Angeles I found a cheap hotel just
off Hoover Street and stayed in bed and drank. I drank

FACTOTUM / 57

for some time, three or four days. I couldn’t get myself to read
the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind
a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified
for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life,
at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep
himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank
the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have
you by the throat.

I got out of bed one night, dressed and walked up town. I
found myself on Alvarado Street. I walked along until I came
to an inviting bar and went in. It was crowded. There was only
one seat left at the bar. I sat in it. I ordered a scotch and water.
To my right sat a rather dark blonde, gone a bit to fat, neck
and cheeks now flabby, obviously a drunk; but there was a
certain lingering beauty to her features, and her body still
looked firm and young and well-shaped. In fact, her legs were
long and lovely. When the lady finished her drink I asked her
if she wanted another. She said yes. I bought her one.

“Buncha damn fools in here,” she said.
“Everywhere, but especially in here,” I said.
I paid for three or four more rounds. We didn’t speak. Then
I told the lady, “That drink was it. I’m broke.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“An apartment, two or three days left on the rent.”
“And you don’t have any money? Or anything to drink?”
“No.”

58 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“Come with me.”
I followed her out of the bar. I noticed that she had a very
nice behind. I walked with her to the nearest liquor store. She
told the clerk what she wanted: two fifths of Grandad, a sixpack
of beer, two packs of cigarettes, some chips, some mixed nuts,
some alka-seltzer, a good cigar. The clerk tabbed it up. “Charge
it,” she said, “to Wilbur Oxnard.” “Wait,” he said, “I’ll have
to phone.” The clerk dialed a number and spoke over the
phone. Then he hung up. “It’s all right,” he said. I helped her
with her bags and we walked out.
“Where are we going with this stuff?”
“To your place. Do you have a car?”
I took her to my car. I had bought one off a lot in Compton
for thirty-five dollars. It had broken springs and a leaking ra-
diator, but it ran.
We got to my place and I put the stuff in the refrigerator,
poured two drinks, brought them out, sat down and lit my ci-
gar. She sat on the couch across from me, her legs crossed. She
had on green earrings. “Swell,” she said.
“What?”
“You think you’re Swell, you think you’re Hot Shit!”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. I can tell by the way you act. I still like you. I
liked you right off.”
“Pull your dress a little higher.”
“You like legs?”
“Yeh. Pull your dress a little higher.”
She did. “Oh, Jesus, now higher, higher yet!”
“Listen, you’re not some kind of nut, are you? There’s

FACTOTUM / 59

one guy been bothering the girls, he picks them up, then takes
them to his place, strips them down and cuts crossword puzzles
into their bodies with a pen knife.”

“I’m not him.”
“Then there are guys who fuck you and then chop you up
into little pieces. They find part of your asshole stuffed up a
drainpipe in Playa Del Rey and your left tit in a trashcan down
at Oceanside…”
“I stopped doing that years ago. Lift your skirt higher.”
She hiked her skirt higher. It was like the beginning of life
and laughter, it was the real meaning of the sun. I walked over,
sat on the couch next to her and kissed her. Then I got up,
poured two more drinks and tuned the radio in to KFAC. We
caught the beginning of something by Debussy.
“You like that kind of music?” she asked.

Some time during the night as we were talking I fell off the
couch. I lay on the floor and looked up those beautiful legs.
“Baby,” I said, “I’m a genius but nobody knows it but me.”

She looked down at me. “Get up off the floor you damn fool
and get me a drink.”

I brought her drink and curled up next to her. I did feel
foolish. Later we got into bed. The lights were off and I got on
top of her. I stroked once or twice, stopped. “What’s your name,
anyhow?”

“What the hell difference does it make?” she answered.

60 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

32

Her name was Laura. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon and
I walked along the path behind the furniture shop on Alvarado
Street. I had my suitcase with me. There was a large white
house back there, wooden, two stories, old, the white paint
peeling. “Now stay back from the door,” she said. “There’s a
mirror halfway up the stairs that allows him to see who’s at
the door.”

Laura stood there ringing the bell while I hid to the right of
the door. “Let him just see me, and when the buzzer sounds,
I’ll push the door open and you follow me in.”

The buzzer rang and Laura pushed the door open. I followed
her in, leaving my suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. Wilbur
Oxnard stood at the top of the stairway and Laura ran up to
him. Wilbur was an old guy, grey-haired, with one arm. “Baby,
so good to see you!” Wilbur put his one arm around Laura and
kissed her. When they separated he saw me.

“Who’s that guy?”
“Oh, Willie, I want you to meet a friend of mine.”
“Hi,” I said.
Wilbur didn’t answer me. “Wilbur Oxnard, Henry Chinaski,”
Laura introduced us.
“Good to know you, Wilbur,” I said.
Wilbur still didn’t answer. Finally he said, “Well, come

FACTOTUM / 61

on up.”
I followed Wilbur and Laura across the front room. There

were coins all over the floor, nickels, dimes, quarters, halves.
An electric organ sat in the very center of the room. I followed
them into the kitchen where we sat down at the breakfastnook
table. Laura introduced me to the two women who sat there.
“Henry, this is Grace and this is Jerry. Girls, this is Henry
Chinaski.”

“Hello, there,” said Grace.
“How are you doing?” asked Jerry.
“My pleasure, ladies.”
They were drinking whiskey with beer chasers. A bowl was
in the center of the table filled with black and green olives,
chili peppers, and celery hearts. I reached out and got a chili
pepper. “Help yourself,” Wilbur said, waving toward the
whiskey bottle. He’d already put a beer down in front of me.
I poured a drink.
“What do you do?” asked Wilbur.
“He’s a writer,” said Laura. “He’s been printed in the
magazines.”
“Are you a writer?” Wilbur asked me.
“Sometimes.”
“I need a writer. Are you a good one?”
“Every writer thinks he’s a good one.”
“I need somebody to do the libretto for an opera I’ve written.
It’s called ‘The Emperor of San Francisco.’ Did you know there
was once a guy who wanted to be the Emperor of San Fran-
cisco?”
“No, no, I didn’t.”
“It’s very interesting. I’ll give you a book on it.”

62 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

“All right.”
We sat quietly a while, drinking. All the girls were in their
mid-thirties, attractive and very sexy, and they knew it.
“How do you like the curtains?” he asked me. “The girls
made these curtains for me. The girls have a lot of talent.”
I looked at the curtains. They were sickening. Huge red
strawberries all over them, surrounded by dripping stems.
“I like the curtains,” I told him.
Wilbur got out some more beer and we all had more drinks
from the whiskey bottle. “Don’t worry,” said Wilbur, “there’s
another bottle when this one’s gone.”
“Thanks, Wilbur.”
He looked at me. “My arm’s getting stiff.” He lifted his arm
and moved his fingers. “I can hardly move my fingers, I think
I’m going to die. The doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong.
The girls think I’m kidding, the girls laugh at me.”
“I don’t think you’re kidding,” I told him, “I believe you.”
We had a couple of drinks more.
“I like you,” said Wilbur, “you look like you’ve been around,
you look like you’ve got class. Most people don’t have class.
You’ve got class.”
“I don’t know anything about class,” I said, “but I’ve been
around.”
“Let’s go into the other room. I want to play you a few
choruses from the opera.”
“Fine,” I said.
We opened a new fifth, got out somé more beer, and went
into the other room. “Don’t you want me to make you some
soup, Wilbur?” asked Grace.

FACTOTUM / 63

“Who ever heard of eating soup at the organ?” he answered.
We all laughed. We all liked Wilbur.
“He throws money on the floor every time he gets drunk,”
Laura whispered to me. “He says nasty things to us and throws
coins at us. He says it’s what we’re worth. He can get very
nasty.”
Wilbur got up, went to his bedroom, came out wearing a
sailing cap, and sat back down at the organ. He began playing
the organ with his one arm and his bad fingers. He played a
very loud organ. We sat there drinking and listening to the
organ. When he finished, I applauded.
Wilbur turned around on the stool. “The girls were up here
the other night,” he said, “and then somebody hollered ‘RAID!’
You should have seen them running, some of them naked,
some of them in panties and bras, they all ran out and hid in
the garage. It was funny as hell. I sat up here and they came
drifting back, one by one, from the garage. It was sure funny!”
“Who hollered ‘RAID’?” I asked.
“I did,” he said.
Then he stood up and walked into his bedroom and began
undressing. I could see him sitting on the edge of his bed in
his underwear. Laura walked in and sat on the bed with him
and kissed him. Then she came out and Grace and Jerry went
in. Laura motioned to the bottom of the stairway. I went down
for my suitcase and brought it back up.

64 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

33

When we awakened, Laura told me about Wilbur. It was
9:30 a.m. and there wasn’t a sound in the house. “He’s a mil-
lionaire,” she said, “don’t let this old house fool you. His
grandfather bought land all around here and his father did
too. Grace is his girl but Grace gives him a rough time. And
he’s a tight son of a bitch. He likes to take care of the girls in
the bars who have no place to sleep. But all he gives them is
food and a bed, never any money. And they only get drinks
when he’s drinking. Jerry got to him one night, though. He was
horny and chasing her around the table and she said, ‘No, no
no, not unless you give me fifty bucks a month for life!’ He fi-
nally signed a piece of paper and do you know it held up in
court? He has to pay her fifty bucks a month, and it’s fixed so
that when he dies his family will have to pay her.”

“Good,” I said.
“Grace is his main girl, though.”
“How about you?”
“Not for a long time.”
“That’s good, because I like you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Now, you watch. If he comes out this morning with his
sailor cap on, that captain’s cap, that means we’re going out

FACTOTUM / 65

on the yacht. The doctor told him to get a yacht for his health.”
“Is it a big one?”
“Sure. Listen, did you pick up all those coins off the floor

last night?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s better to take some and leave some.”
“I guess you’re right. Should I put some back?”
“If you get a chance.”
I started to get up to get dressed when Jerry ran into the

bedroom. “He’s standing in front of the mirror adjusting his
cap to the proper angle. We’re going out on the yacht!”

“O.K., Jerry,” said Laura.
We both began to get dressed. We were just in time. Wilbur
didn’t speak. He was hungover. We followed him down the
stairway and into the garage where we got into an unbelievably
old car. It was so old it had a rumble seat. Grace and Jerry got
into the front seat with Wilbur and I got into the rumble seat
with Laura. Wilbur backed out the driveway, headed south
on Alvarado, and we were on our way to San Pedro.
“He’s hungover and he’s not drinking and when he’s not
drinking he doesn’t want anybody else to drink either, the
bastard. So watch it,” said Laura.
“Hell, I need a drink.”
“We all need a drink,” she said. Laura took a pint from her
purse and unscrewed the cap. She handed the bottle to me.
“Now wait until he checks us in the rear-view mirror. Then
the minute his eyes go back to the road, take a slug.”
Soon I saw Wilbur’s eyes looking at us in the

66 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

rear-view mirror. Then he looked back at the road. I took a hit
and felt much better. I handed the bottle back to Laura. She
waited until Wilbur’s eyes looked into the rear-view, then went
back to the road. She had her turn. It was a pleasant journey.
By the time we reached San Pedro the bottle was empty. Laura
took out some gum, I lit a cigar, and we climbed out. As I
helped Laura out of the rumble seat her skirt came up and I
saw those long nylon legs, the knees, the slender ankles. I began
to get horny and looked out over the water. There was the
yacht: The Oxwill. It was the largest yacht in the harbor. A small
motor boat took us out. We climbed aboard. Wilbur waved to
some fellow boatmen and some wharf-rats and then he looked
at me.

“How you feeling?”
“Great, Wilbur, great…like an Emperor.”
“Come here, I want to show you something.” We walked
toward the back of the boat and Wilbur leaned down and
pulled a ring. He pulled back a hatch cover. There were two
motors down there. “I want to show you how to start this
auxiliary motor in case anything goes wrong. It’s not difficult.
I can do it with one arm.”
I stood there bored as Wilbur pulled at a rope. I nodded and
told him that I understood. But that wasn’t enough, he had to
show me how to pull anchor and unmoor from the dock when
all I wanted was another drink.
After all that, we pulled out and he stood there in the cabin
with his sailor’s cap on, steering the yacht. All the girls
crowded around him.
“Oh, Willie, let me steer!”
“Willie, let me steer!”

FACTOTUM / 67

I didn’t ask to steer. I didn’t want to steer. I followed Laura
down below. It was like a luxury hotel suite, only there were
bunks on the wall, no beds. We went to the refrigerator. It was
filled with food and drink. We found an open fifth of whiskey
and took that out. We had a bit of whiskey and water. It seemed
like a decent life. Laura turned on the record player and we
listened to something called “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” Laura
looked fine. She was happy and smiling. I leaned over and
kissed her, ran my hand up her leg. Then I heard the engine
cut off and Wilbur came down the steps.

“We’re going back in,” he said. He looked quite stern in his
captain’s cap.

“What for?” asked Laura.
“She’s gone into one of her moods. I’m afraid she’ll jump
overboard. She won’t speak to me. She just sits there, staring.
She can’t swim. I’m afraid she’ll jump into the ocean.”
“Listen, Wilbur,” said Laura, “just give her ten bucks. She’s
got runs in her stockings.”
“No, we’re going in. Besides, you people have been drink-
ing!”
Wilbur went back up the steps. The engine coughed and we
turned around and headed back toward San Pedro.
“This happens everytime we try to go to Catalina. Grace
goes into one of her moods and sits there staring at the ocean
with that scarf tied around her head. That’s how she gets things
out of him. She’s never going to jump overboard. She hates
water.”
“Well,” I said, “we might as well have a few more drinks.
When I think about writing lyrics to Wilbur’s opera I

68 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

realize how disgusting my life has become.”
“We might as well drink up,” said Laura, “he’s mad now

anyhow.”
Jerry came down and joined us. “Grace is sore about that

fifty bucks a month I’m getting out of his ass. Hell, it ain’t that
easy. The minute she’s gone that old son of a bitch leaps on
top of me and starts pumping. He never gets enough. He’s
afraid he’s going to die and he wants to get in as many as
possible.”

She drank her shot and poured another one.
“I should have stayed in personnel at Sears Roebuck. I had
a good thing going.”
We all drank to that.

34

By the time we docked, Grace had joined us too. She still
had the scarf around her head and she wasn’t talking but she
was drinking. We were all drinking. We were all drinking
when Wilbur came down the stairs. He stood there looking at
us. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

That was in the afternoon. We waited and we drank. The
girls started arguing about how they should handle Wilbur. I
climbed into one of the bunks and went to sleep. When I
awakened it was evening going into night and it was cold.

“Where’s Wilbur?” I asked.
“He’s not coming back,” said Jerry, “he’s mad.”

FACTOTUM / 69

“He’ll be back,” said Laura, “Grace is here.”
“I don’t give a damn if he never comes back,” said Grace.
“We got enough food and drink here to supply the whole
Egyptian Army for a month.”
So there I was in the biggest yacht in the harbor with three
women. But it was very cold. It was the chill off the water. I
got out of the bunk, got a drink, and crawled back into the
bunk. “Jesus, it’s cold,” said Jerry, “let me get in there and
warm up.” She kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bunk
with me. Laura and Grace were drunk and arguing about
something. Jerry was small and round, very round, a sung
type. She pushed against me.
“Jesus, it’s cold. Put your arms around me.”
“Laura…” I said.
“Fuck Laura.”
“I mean, she might get mad.”
“She won’t get mad. We’re friends. Look.” Jerry sat up in
the bunk. “Laura, Laura…”
“Yes?”
“Look, I’m trying to get warm. O.K.?”
“O.K.,” said Laura.
Jerry snuggled back down under the covers. “See, she said
it’s O.K.”
“All right,” I said. I put my hand on her ass and kissed her.
“Just don’t go too far,” said Laura.
“He’s just holding me,” said Jerry.
I got my hand up under her dress and began working her
panties down. It was difficult. By the time she kicked them off
I was more than ready. Her tongue shot in and

70 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

out of my mouth. We tried to look nonchalant while we did it
sideways. I slipped out several times but Jerry put it back in.
“Don’t go too far,” Laura said again. It slipped out and Jerry
grabbed it and squeezed. “She’s just holding me,” I told Laura.
Jerry giggled and put it back in. It stayed there. I got hotter
and hotter. “You bitch,” I whispered, “I love you.” Then I came.
Jerry got out of the bunk and went to the bathroom. Grace was
making us roast beef sandwiches. I climbed out of the bunk
and we had roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, sliced toma-
toes, coffee and apple pie. We were all hungry.

“I sure got warmed up,” said Jerry. “Henry’s one good
heating pad.”

“I’m plenty cold,” said Grace, “I think I’ll try some of that
heating pad. Do you mind, Laura?”

“I don’t mind. Just don’t go too far.”
“How far’s too far?”
“You know what I mean.”
After we ate I got into the bunk and Grace climbed in with
me. She was the tallest of the three. I’d never been in bed with
a woman that tall. I kissed her. Her tongue answered. Women,
I thought, women are magic. What marvelous beings they are!
I reached up under her dress and pulled at the panties. It was
a long way down. “What the hell are you doing?” she
whispered. “I’m pulling your panties down.” “What for?” “I’m
going to fuck you.” “I just want to get warm.” “I’m going to
fuck you.” “Laura is my friend. I’m Wilbur’s woman.” “I’m
going to fuck you.” “What are you doing?” “I’m trying to get
it in.” “No!” “God damn it, help me.” “Get it in yourself.”
“Help

FACTOTUM / 71

me.” “Get it in by yourself. Laura’s my friend.” “What’s that
got to do with it?” “What?” “Forget it.” “Listen, I’m not ready
yet.” “Here’s my finger.” “Ow, easy. Show a lady some re-
spect.” “All right, all right. Is that better?” “That’s better.
Higher. There. There! That’s it…”

“No hanky-panky now,” said Laura.
“No, I’m just warming her up.”
“I wonder when Wilbur’s coming back?” said Jerry.
“I don’t give a damn if he never comes back,” I said, getting
it into Grace. She moaned. It was good. I went very slow,
measuring my strokes. I didn’t slip out like with Jerry. “You
rotten son of a bitch,” said Grace, “you bastard, Laura’s my
friend.” “I’m fucking you,” I said, “feel that thing going in and
out of your body, in and out, in and out, in and out, flup flup
flup.” “Don’t talk like that, you’re making me hot.” “I’m
fucking you,” I said, “fuck fuck fucky fuck, we’re fucking,
we’re fucking, we’re fucking. Oh, it’s so dirty, oh it’s so filthy,
this fucking fucking fucking…” “God damn you, stop it.” “It’s
getting bigger and bigger, feel it?” “Yes, yes…” “I’m going to
come. Jesus Christ, I’m going to come…” I came and pulled
out. “You raped me, you bastard, you raped me,” she
whispered. “I ought to tell Laura.” “Go ahead, tell her. Think
she’ll believe you?” Grace climbed out of the bunk and went
to the bathroom. I wiped off on the sheet, pulled up my pants
and leaped out of the bunk.
“You girls know how to play dice?”
“What do you need?” asked Laura.
“I’ve got the dice. You girls got any money? It takes dice and
money. I’ll show you how. Get your money out

72 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

and put it in front of you. Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t
have much money. I don’t have much money. We’re all friends,
aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Jerry, “we’re all friends.”
“Yes,” said Laura, “we’re all friends.”
Grace came out of the bathroom. “What’s that bastard doing
now?”
“He’s going to show us how to play dice,” said Jerry.
“Shoot dice is the term. I’m going to show you girls how to
shoot dice.”
“You are, eh?” asked Grace.
“Yeah, Grace, get your tall ass down here and I’ll show you
how it works…”
An hour later I had most of the money when Wilbur Oxnard
suddenly came down the steps. That’s how Willie found us
when he came back—shooting craps and drunk.
“I don’t allow gambling on this ship!” he screamed from the
bottom of the steps. Grace got off her knees, walked across the
room, put her arms around him and stuck her long tongue into
his mouth, then grabbed his private parts. “Where’s my Willie
been, leavin’ his Gracie all alone and lonely on this big boat?
I sure missed my Willie.”
Willie came into the room smiling. He sat down at the table
and Grace got a new fifth of whiskey and opened it. Wilbur
poured the drinks. He looked at me:
“I had to go back and straighten out a few notes in the opera.
You’re still going to do the libretto?”
“The libretto?”
“The words.”

FACTOTUM / 73

‘To be truthful, Wilbur, I haven’t been thinking much about
it, but if you’re really serious I’ll go to work on it.”

“I’m really serious,” he said.
“I’ll start tomorrow,” I said.
Just then Grace reached under the table and unzipped Wil-
bur’s fly. It was going to be a good night for all of us.

35

Grace, Laura and I were sitting at the bar in The Green Smear
a few days later when Jerry walked in. “Whiskey sour,” she
told the barkeep. When the drink came Jerry just stared down
at it. “Listen, Grace, you weren’t there last night. I was there
with Wilbur.”

“That’s all right, honey, I had a little business to take care
of. I like to keep the old boy guessing.”

“Grace, he got down low, real low. Henry wasn’t there,
Laura wasn’t there. He had nobody to talk to. I tried to help
him.”

Laura and I had slept over at an all-night party at the bar-
tender’s house. We’d come right from there back to the bar. I
hadn’t started work on the libretto and Wilbur had been after
me. He wanted me to read all the damned books. I’d long ago
given up reading anything.

“He was really drinking. He got onto vodka. He started
drinking straight vodka. He kept asking where you were
Grace.”

“That could be love,” said Grace.

74 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Jerry finished her whiskey sour and ordered another. “I
didn’t want him to drink too much,” she said, “so when he
passed out I took the bottle of vodka, poured out part of it,
and filled the rest with water. But he’d already drunk a lot of
that hundred proof shit. I kept telling him to come to bed…”

“Oh yeah?” said Grace.
“I kept telling him to come to bed but he wouldn’t. He was
so freaked out that I had to drink too. Anyhow, I got sleepy,
it got to me and I left him in that chair with his vodka.”
“You didn’t get him to bed?” asked Grace.
“No. In the morning I walked in and he was still sitting in
that chair, the vodka at his side. ‘Good morning, Willie,’ I said.
I never saw such beautiful eyes. The window was open and
the sunlight was in them, all the soul.”
“I know,” said Grace, “Willie has beautiful eyes.”
“He didn’t answer me. I couldn’t get him to talk. I went to
the phone and called his brother, you know, the doctor who
takes dope. His brother came up and looked at him and got
on the phone and we sat there until two guys came up and
they closed Willie’s eyes and stuck a needle into him. Then we
sat around and talked for a while until one of the guys looked
at his watch and said, ‘O.K.’ and they got up and took Willie
off the chair and laid him out on a stretcher. Then they carried
him out of there and that was it.”
“Shit,” said Grace. “I’m fucked.”
“You’re fucked,” said Jerry, “I still got my fifty

FACTOTUM / 75

a month.”
“And your round, fat ass,” said Grace.
“And my round, fat ass,” said Jerry.
Laura and I knew we were fucked. There was no need to

say it.
We all sat there at the bar attempting to think of a next move.
“I wonder,” said Jerry, “if I killed him?”
“Killed him how?” I asked.
“By mixing water with his vodka. He always drank it

straight. It might have been the water that killed him.”
“It might have,” I said.
Then I motioned to the barkeep. “Tony,” I said, “will you

please serve the plump little lady a vodka and water?” Grace
didn’t think that was very humorous.

I didn’t see it happen, but the way I heard it afterwards,
Grace left and went to Wilbur’s house and started beating on
the door, beating and screaming and beating, and the brother,
the doctor, came to the door but he wouldn’t let her in, he was
bereaved and drugged and he wouldn’t let her in but Grace
wouldn’t quit. The doctor didn’t know Grace very well (maybe
he should have for she was a fine fuck) and he went to the
phone and the police came but she was wild and crazed and
it took two of them to put the bracelets on her. They made a
mistake and had her hands in front and she came up and then
down with the handcuffs and raked open one of the cop’s
cheeks, opened him up, so that you could look into the side of
his head and see his teeth. More cops came and they took Grace
away, screaming and kicking, and

76 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

after that none of us ever saw her or each other again.

36

Rows and rows of silent bicycles. Bins filled with bicycle
parts. Rows and rows of bicycles hanging from the ceiling:
green bikes, red bikes, yellow bikes, purple bikes, blue bikes,
girls’ bikes, boys’ bikes, all hanging up there; the glistening
spokes, the wheels, the rubber tires, the paint, the leather seats,
tailights, headlights, handbrakes; hundreds of bicycles, row
after row.

We got an hour for lunch. I’d eat quickly, having been up
most of the night and early morning, I’d be tired, aching all
over, and I found this secluded spot under the bicycles. I’d
crawl down there, under three deep tiers of bicycles immacu-
lately arranged. I’d lay there on my back, and suspended over
me, precisely lined up, hung rows of gleaming silver spokes,
wheel rims, black rubber tires, shiny new paint, everything in
perfect order. It was grand, correct, orderly—500 or 600 bicycles
stretching out over me, covering me, all in place. Somehow it
was meaningful. I’d look up at them and know I had forty-five
minutes of rest under the bicycle tree.

Yet I also knew with another part of me, that if I ever let go
and dropped into the flow of those shiny new bicycles, I was
done, finished, that I’d never be able to make it. So I just lay
back and let the wheels and the spokes and the colors soothe
me.

FACTOTUM / 77

A man with a hangover should never lay flat on his back
looking up at the roof of a warehouse. The wooden girders fi-
nally get to you; and the skylights—you can see the chicken
wire in the glass skylights—that wire somehow reminds a man
of jail. Then there’s the heaviness of the eyes, the longing for
just one drink, and then the sound of people moving about,
you hear them, you know your hour is up, somehow you have
to get on your feet and walk around and fill and pack orders…

37

She was the manager’s secretary. Her name was Car-
men—but despite the Spanish name she was a blonde and she
wore tight knitted dresses, high spiked heels, nylons, garter
belt, her mouth was thick with lipstick, but, oh, she could
shimmy, she could shake, she wobbled while bringing the or-
ders up to the desk, she wobbled back to the office, all the boys
watching every move, every twitch of her buttocks; wobbling,
wiggling, wagging. I am not a lady’s man. I never have been.
To be a lady’s man you have to make with the sweet talk. I’ve
never been good at sweet talk. But, finally, with Carmen
pressing me, I led her into one of the boxcars we were unload-
ing at the rear of the warehouse and I took her standing up in
the back of one of those boxcars. It was good, it was warm; I
thought of blue sky and wide clean beaches, yet it was
sad—there was definitely a lack of human feeling that I

78 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

couldn’t understand or deal with. I had that knit dress up
around her hips and I stood there pumping it to her, finally
pressing my mouth to her heavy mouth thick with scarlet lip-
stick and I came between two unopened cartons with the air
full of cinders and with her back pressed against the filthy
splintering boxcar wall in the merciful dark.

38

We all doubled up as both stock and shipping clerks. We
each filled and shipped our own orders. Management was all
for pinpointing errors. And since only one man was responsible
for each order from start to finish, there was no way to pass
the buck. Three or four goofed up orders and you were out.

Bums and indolents, all of us working there realized our
days were numbered. So we relaxed and waited for them to
find out how inept we were. Meanwhile, we lived with the
system, gave them a few honest hours, and drank together at
night.

There were three of us. Me. And a guy called Hector
Gonzalves—tall, stooped, placid. He had a lovely Mexican
wife who lived with him in a large double bed on upper Hill
Street. I know because I went out with him one night and we
drank beer and I frightened Hector’s wife. Hector and I had
walked in after a drunken evening in the bars and I pulled her
out of bed and kissed her in front of

FACTOTUM / 79

Hector. I figured I could out-duke him. All I had to do was to
keep an eye out for the steel. I finally apologized to both of
them for being such an asshole. I could hardly blame her then
for not warming to me and I never went back.

The third was Alabam, a small-time thief. He stole rear-view
mirrors, screws and bolts, screwdrivers, light bulbs, reflectors,
horns, batteries. He stole womens’ panties and bedsheets off
of clotheslines, rugs out of hallways. He’d go to the markets
and buy a bag of potatos, but at the bottom of the sack he’d
have steaks, slices of ham, cans of anchovies. He went by the
name of George Fellows. George had a nasty habit: he’d drink
with me and when I was almost to the point of helplessness,
he’d attack me. He wanted badly to whip my ass but he was
a thin fellow and cowardly to boot. I always managed to rouse
myself enough to give him a few to the gut and the side of the
head which would send him bounding and staggering down
the stairway, usually with some small stolen item in his pock-
et—my washrag, a can opener, an alarm clock, my pen, a can
of pepper, or perhaps a pair of scissors.

The manager of the bike warehouse, Mr. Hansen, was red-
faced, sombre, green-tongued from sucking Clorets to get the
whiskey off his breath. One day he called me into the office.

“Listen, Henry, those two boys are pretty dumb, aren’t
they?”

“They’re all right.”
“But, I mean, Hector especially…he is dumb, really. Oh, I
mean, he’s all right, but I mean, do you

80 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

think he’ll ever make it?”
“Hector is all right, sir.”
“You mean it?”
“Of course.”
“That Alabam. He’s got weasel-eyes. He probably steals six

dozen bike pedals a month, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think so, sir. I’ve never seen him take anything.”
“Chinaski?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m giving you a ten dollar a week raise.”
“Thank you, sir.” We shook hands. That’s when I realized

that he and Alabam were in cahoots and splitting it right down
the middle.

39

Jan was an excellent fuck. She’d had two children but she
was a most excellent fuck. We had met at an open air lunch
counter—I was spending my last fifty cents on a greasy ham-
burger—and we struck up a conversation. She bought me a
beer, gave me her phone number, and three days later I moved
in to her apartment.

She had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that
was killing her. She reminded me of a butterfat little piglet.
There was enough meanness and hostility in her to make me
feel that with each thrust I was paying her back for her ill-
temper. She’d had one ovary removed and claimed that she
couldn’t get pregnant; for only one ovary she

FACTOTUM / 81

responded generously.
Jan looked a lot like Laura—only she was leaner and prettier,

with shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes. She was
strange; she was always hot in the morning with her hangovers.
I was not so hot in the mornings with mine. I was a night man.
But at night she was always screaming and throwing things
at me: telephones, telephone books, bottles, glasses (full and
empty), radios, purses, guitars, ashtrays, dictionaries, broken
watch bands, alarm clocks…She was an unusual woman. But
one thing I could always count on, she wanted to fuck in the
mornings, very much. And I had my bicycle warehouse.

Watching the clock on a typical morning, I’d give her the
first one, me gagging and spewing just a bit, trying to hide it;
then getting heated, coming, rolling off. “There, now,” I’d say,
“I’m going to be fifteen minutes late.” And she’d trot off to the
bathroom, happy as a bird, clean herself, poop, look at the hair
under her arms, look in the mirror, worry more about age than
death, then trot and get between the sheets again as I climbed
into my stained shorts, to the noise of the traffic outside on
Third Street, rolling east.

“Come on back to bed, daddy,” she’d say.
“Look, I just got a ten dollar raise.”
“We don’t have to do anything. Just lay down here beside
me.”
“Oh shit, kid.”
“Please! Just five minutes.”
“Oh, fuck.”
I’d get back in. She’d pull the covers back and grab my balls.
Then she’d grab my penis. “Oh, he’s so cute!”

82 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I’d be thinking, I wonder when I can get out of here?
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you mind if I kiss him?”
“No.”
I heard and felt the kisses, then felt little licks. Then I forgot
all about the bicycle warehouse. Then I heard her ripping up
a newspaper. I felt something being fitted over the tip of my
dick. “Look,” she said.
I sat up. Jan had fashioned a little paper hat and fitted it over
the head of my dick. Around the brim was a little yellow rib-
bon. The thing stood fairly tall.
“Oh, isn’t he cute?” she asked me.
“He? That’s me.”
“Oh no, that isn’t you, that’s him, you have nothing to do
with him.”
“I don’t?”
“No. Do you mind if I kiss him again?”
“All right, it’s all right. Go ahead.”
Jan lifted the hat off and holding on with one hand she began
kissing where the hat had been. Her eyes looked deep into
mine. The tip of it entered her mouth. I fell back, damned.

40

I arrived at the bicycle warehouse at 10:30 a.m. Starting time
was 8. It was morning break time and the

FACTOTUM / 83

coffee wagon was outside. The warehouse crew was out there.
I walked up and ordered a coffee, large, and a jelly doughnut.
I talked to Carmen, the manager’s secretary, of boxcar fame.
As usual Carmen was wearing a very tight knitted dress that
fit her like a balloon fits the trapped air, maybe tighter. She
had on layers and layers of dark red lipstick and while she
talked she stood as close as possible, looking into my eyes and
giggling, brushing parts of her body against me. Carmen was
so aggressive that she was frightening, you wanted to run
away from the pressure. Like most women, she wanted what
she couldn’t have any longer and Jan was draining all my se-
men and then some. Carmen thought I was playing sophistic-
ated and hard to get. I leaned back clutching my jelly doughnut
and she leaned into me. The break ended and we all walked
inside. I visualized Carmen’s lightly shit-stained panties draped
over one of my toes as we lay in bed together in her shack on
Main Street. Mr. Hansen, the manager, was standing outside
his office: “Chinaski,” he barked. I knew the sound: it was over
for me.

I walked toward him and stood there. He was in a newly-
pressed light tan summer suit, bow tie (green), tan shirt, with
his black-and-tan shoes exquisitely shined. I was suddenly
conscious of the nails in the soles of my scruffy shoes pressing
up into the soles of my feet. Three buttons on my dirty shirt
were missing. The zipper in my pants was jammed at half mast.
My belt buckle was broken.

“Yes?” I asked.
“I’m going to have to let you go.”
“O.K.”
“You’re a damned good clerk but I’m going to have to

84 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

let you go.”
I was embarrassed for him.
“You’ve been showing up for work at 10:30 for 5 or 6 days

now. How do you think the other workers feel about this?
They work an eight hour day.”

“It’s all right. Relax.”
“Listen, when I was a kid I was a tough guy too. I used to
show up for work with a black eye three or four times a month.
But I made it into the job every day. On time. I worked my
way up.”
I didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong? How come you can’t get in here on time?”
I had a sudden hunch that I might save my job if I gave him
the right answer. “I just got married. You know how it is. I’m
on my honeymoon. In the mornings I start getting into my
clothes, the sun is shining through the blinds, and she drags
me down onto the mattress for one last fling of turkeyneck.”
It didn’t work. “I’ll have them make out your severance
check.” Hansen strode toward his office. He went inside and
I heard him say something to Carmen. I had another sudden
inspiration and I knocked on one of the glass panels. Hansen
looked up, walked over, slid back the glass.
“Listen,” I said, “I never made it with Carmen. Honest. She’s
nice, but she’s not my type. Make out my check for the whole
week.”
Hansen turned back into the office. “Make out his check for
a week.” It was only Tuesday. I hadn’t expected that—but then
he and Alabam were splitting 20,000 bicycle

FACTOTUM / 85

pedals down the middle. Carmen walked up and handed me
the check. She stood there and gave me an indifferent smile as
Hansen sat down at the telephone and dialed the State Employ-
ment Office.

41

I still had my thirty-five dollar car. The horses were hot. We
were hot. Jan and I knew nothing about horses, but we lucked
out. In those days they carded eight races instead of nine. We
had a magic formula—it was called “Harmatz in the eighth.”
Willie Harmatz was a better than average jock, but he had
weight problems, like Howard Grant does now. Examining
the charts we noticed that Harmatz usually jumped one in on
the last race, usually at a good price.

We didn’t go out there every day. Some mornings we were
just too sick from drinking to get out of bed. Then we’d get up
in the early afternoon, stop off at the liquor store, stop off for
an hour or two at some bar, listen to the juke box, watch the
drunks, smoke, listen to the dead laughter—it was a nice way
to go.

We were lucky. We only seemed to end up at the track on
the right days. “Now look,” I’d tell Jan, “He isn’t going to do
it again…it’s impossible.”

And there would come Willie Harmatz, with the old stretch
run, looming up at the last moment through the gloom and
the booze—there would come good old Willie at

86 / CHARLES BUKOWSKI

16 to one, at 8 to one, at 9 to two. Willie kept saving us long
after the rest of the world had become indifferent and had quit.

The thirty-five dollar car nearly always started, that wasn’t
the problem; the problem was to turn the headlights on. It was
always very dark after the eighth race. Jan usually insisted
upon taking a bottle of port in her purse. Then we drank beer
at the track and—if things were going well—we drank at the
track bar, mostly scotch and water. I already had one drunk
driving rap and I’d find myself driving along in a car without
headlights, hardly knowing where I was.

“Don’t worry, baby,” I’d say, “the next hard bump we hit
will turn the lights on.” We had the advantage of broken
springs.

“Here’s a dip! Hold your hat!”
“I don’t have a hat!”
I’d floor it.
POW! POW! POW!
Jan would bounce up and down, trying to hold on to her
bottle of port. I’d grip the wheel and look for a bit of light on
the road ahead. Hitting those bumps would always turn the
lights on. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but we’d always
get the lights on.

42

We lived on the fourth floor of an old apartment house; we
had two rooms in the back. The apartment was built at